Mix It Up!

Globalization is a phrase heard more and more in everyday conversation, used both fearfully and admiringly. According to Merriam-Webster, globalization is “the development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets.” But that’s just a basic definition.  When free trade, capital, and cheaper labor markets are all combined, it moves not only capital or goods, it also moves people and ideas. To move it a step further, when people and ideas are moved, cultures mix and eventually, children are born out of the globalization process that can lay claim to two, or more, cultural backgrounds.

The phenomena of having biracial or multiracial children is one that has exploded over the last decade, according to one Washington Post article, with “more than 7 percent of the 3.5 million children born in the year before the 2010 Census were of two or more races, up from barely 5 percent a decade earlier.” This is thought to be because of there being more interracial couples and births resulting from them, but also because parents are more comfortable expressing the “multiracial-ity” of their children.

 With the spread of globalization and the notion of a “global culture” that seemingly makes the world smaller and smaller, it is absolutely true that children will be born into this global culture, and will most likely be accepting of and take pride in their multifaceted genealogy. It is imperative to support, and celebrate, this inevitable cultural mixing because it limits globalization’s goals of free trade, capital and foreign labor if it is not.

Personally, I am the product of cultural mixing as my mother was born and raised in Venezuela, and my father’s comes from Jews who escaped Russia in the late 1800’s. I’ve grown up with both cultures, going to Hebrew school and having a Bat Mitzvah, but I also had a quinceañera, which I celebrated with my family in Venezuela. I speak Spanish fluently, and I still remember the Hebrew alphabet. Yet I can distinctly remember taking surveys for various standardized tests in elementary, middle, and even high school, where when the question of race or ethnicity came up, it always was “Pick One”. How does a biracial or multiracial child pick if they’ve grown up with many cultures? As one of my high school teachers put it, I am simply “other”. I was never just one or the other, rather a blend of both. Of course, there hasn’t always been such openness about mixing cultures.

During the Vietnam War in the 1960’s, many mixed Vietnamese-American children were born, with GI fathers and Vietnamese mothers. Shunned by other Vietnamese, many of these mixed children who were not lifted out during “Operation Babylift”, a program instituted during the Ford administration where these mixed children were taken and brought to the United States to be adopted, lived a tortured, lonely life. In the article “Vietnam War babies: grown up and low on luck”, author Patrick Winn describes how these war babies have grown up, and shows that most who were left in Vietnam grew up in complete poverty and think of themselves as American or AmerAsian rather than Vietnamese, since they were so shunned by their own countrymen. For many who made it to America and were later adopted, they also experienced their own torment. In the documentary “Daughter from Danang”, a woman returns to her childhood home in Danang, Vietnam and reunites with her mother after 22 years. Heidi, the mixed child, describes how she often struggled with depression and a lack of identity. The lessons we can learn from the struggles of rejected mixed children are perfectly valid lessons in the importance of acceptance.

Even among my peers there is always the question of “Where are you from?” that most often refers to nationality rather than a specific location. Being able to answer that question without stigma or worrying about prejudice is a luxury that my generation has been granted. It’s in fact almost a nonissue, so much that so that in a New York Times article, “Generation E.A.: Ethnically Ambiguous”, they go so far to say, “Ambiguity is chic, especially among the under-25 members of Generation Y, the most racially diverse population in the nation's history.” This is a radical change that can especially be seen in advertising and other media outlets, which, ironically, completes the circle of globalization as advertising promotes trade all over the world.

Ad from the 1950's

"Biracial Shoot" from America's Next Top Model 2009

Globalization is inevitable, it’s happening right now. The results of globalization are also becoming more and more visible in the children of the new global culture. Without the acceptance of these mixed children, it can stall globalization and cause lasting emotional problems for generations of mixed children to come. A key part of globalization is the word “free” and it’s important to exploit that freedom in every way. The world is growing smaller due to globalization and our global culture is creating connections between cultures that could never have been made before in human history. Multiracial children may be a byproduct of globalization, but it just might be the best one for all of humanity.